Hi MatthewC - thank you for joining the forum and asking a very sensible question!

In Phonics International, groups of words spelled with the same letter/s-sound correspondence are provided on the core Sounds Book Activity Sheets and these provide 'the beginnings of' the spelling word banks.

Activities to sound out and blend to decode the words, but also thinking about their 'meanings' focus attention on the words and make them memorable.

Guidance for teachers includes allowing the learners to sound out and blend by themselves at first, then the learner can use a pencil to tick the words he or she has blended, and circle any words for which the meaning is not known or not clear.

AFTER the learner-practice, sound out and blend all the words together, and then say all the words as whole spoken words, and then spend some time saying each word in a sentence or giving a definition for each word - but be mindful that many words have multiple meanings which you can discuss.

Learners can draw quick pictures above the unknown words to help with learning the meaning - any such activities start to make the learning memorable.

Actually telling your son that he needs to do his best to build up his knowledge of spelling word banks is important - an appreciation that any activity is not just 'for the sake of it' or 'for today's work' but for the long term.

Then, in Phonics International, there is a particular resource, the 'I can read' texts which amount to one side of text for each letter/s-sound correspondence introduced throughout the programme, that helps to embed some of the spelling word banks in memory.

The 'I can read' texts in the second half of the PI programme are very much about vocabulary enrichment and building up knowledge of the spelling word banks and the story themes, plus accompanying colour pictures (or the learner draws his or her own picture), plus some comprehension questions for each text, all contribute to making the learning memorable.

Further, quantify the words in a word bank to be assimilated. For example, underline the focus grapheme in the 'I can read' texts and write down how many words there are, or do this for the Sounds Book Activity Sheets, and this provides a target for 'how many' of the words to remember.

The activities, the spelling story themes of the 'I can read' texts, further resources which are word lists with black line pics of the texts - all of this helps to build up word banks in memory.